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Children and COVID-19 Research Library

UNICEF Innocenti's curated library of COVID-19 + Children research

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466 - 480 of 1293
Parents as educators during lockdown: juggling multiple simultaneous roles to ‘keep atop’ home-schooling amid the COVID-19 pandemic?

AUTHOR(S)
Denise Mifsud

Published: December 2021   Journal: Journal of Educational Administration and History
As from the first quarter of 2020, the spotlight in global news has shone brightly on the Covid-19 pandemic story. One of the major shifts occurred in education as efforts to stem the spread of the virus prompted school closures. Schools gradually shifted to online teaching, and parents were thus forced to combine their regular jobs with supporting the education of their children. Through the collection of qualitative data from focus groups held with various stakeholders, this paper seeks to explore the emerging home-schooling scenario in Malta and the unplanned for and unprecedented adaptation to an online education environment, in order to examine the novel challenges and tensions that emerged between family, school and work. Despite being conducted in a relatively small nation state, this study offers the possibility of opening a dialogue within the global context with ramifications of a new paradigm shift in education, re-shaped by the novel coronavirus.
A generational catastrophe: COVID-19 and children’s access to education and food in South Africa

AUTHOR(S)
Debra Shepherd; Nompumelelo Mohohlwane

Published: December 2021   Journal: Development Southern Africa
Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, children have been put at greater risk of school drop-out, as well as food insecurity and emotional health deterioration. This paper considers these issues as they have occurred in South Africa. It uses all waves of the National Income Dynamics Study–Coronavirus Rapid Mobile Survey to estimate non-return to school, access to school meals, and household well-being. The number of learners not attending school in 2021 is estimated to be close to quadruple pre-pandemic levels. Combined with estimates of learning lost, we can conclude that the pandemic has worn away at two decades of progress made in basic education. Evidence also indicates that school feeding has been slow to recover to pre-pandemic levels. Deepened levels of household hunger combined with a lack of access to free school meals is indicated to contribute to significantly greater levels of caregiver anxiety and psychological distress.
Digital parenting during the COVID-19 lockdowns: how Chinese parents viewed and mediated young children’s digital use

AUTHOR(S)
Simin Cao; Chuanmei Dong; Hui Li

Published: December 2021   Journal: Early Child Development and Care
The COVID-19 lockdowns had forced young children to take digital preschooling and their parents to practize digital parenting. This study explored how Chinese parents viewed and mediated early digital use during the lockdowns. A total of 2491 parents were recruited nationally and surveyed online in late 2020. The results indicated that: (1) Chinese parents held mixed views of early digital use with some being positive (25.09%), and negative (35.13%), and balanced or ambivalent (32.64%); (2) they were concerned about the negative impact on early learning and development even though the lockdown has led to an inevitable surge in digital use; and (3) they mainly perceived parental roles as guides (35.84%) and supervisors (32.04%) and adopted four digital parenting approaches: supervision, active mediation, restrictive mediation, and co-use or co-view. The findings imply that Chinese parents were not ready to cope with the challenges caused by early digital use.
Parental perceptions of the impact of COVID-19 and returning to play based on level of sport

AUTHOR(S)
Michael B. Edwards; Jason N. Bocarro; Kyle S. Bunds (et al.)

Published: December 2021   Journal: Sport in Society
This study examined the impact of COVID-19 on youth sport parents based on competition level to understand how the pandemic affected youth sport and factors associated with youth returning to sport. Survey data were collected from samples of US sport parents in two waves - early in the pandemic (N = 751) and as programs began to resume (N = 707). Data showed elite sport parents were more willing to return. Although most participants returned to play, significant numbers had not resumed participation. Parent comfort was the most important factor associated with resuming. However, parents allowed children to resume play due to perceived external pressure, potentially creating stress among parents regarding sport participation decisions. Attending school in person and household income were associated with the ability to resume sport suggesting the need to provide school sport environments and consider the financial impacts of COVID-19 on sport families.
After the virus: disaster capitalism, digital inequity, and transformative education for the future of schooling

AUTHOR(S)
Richard Miller; Katrina Liu

Published: December 2021   Journal: Education and Urban Society
The 2020 COVID-19 disaster triggered an educational crisis in the United States, deeply exacerbating the inequities present in education as schools went online. This primary impact may not be the only one, however: literature describes a secondary impact of such disasters through “disaster capitalism,” in which the private sector captures the public resources of disaster-struck communities for profit. In response to these warnings, we ask how schools, families, and communities can counteract disaster capitalism for educational equity. To address this question, this study first synthesizes a critical framework for analyzing digital inequity in education. It then dissect the strategies disaster capitalism uses to attack the school-family-community relationship and exacerbate digital inequity in “normal” times as well as during crises. Employing the notion of community funds of knowledge, it next examines the resources schools, families, and communities can mobilize against disaster capitalism and digital inequity. Finally, guided by the concepts of generative change and transformative learning, this study considers actionable practices of countering disaster capitalism for a transformative education.
COVID-19 testing in schools: perspectives of school administrators, teachers, parents, and students in Southern California

AUTHOR(S)
Jennifer B. Unger; Daniel Soto; Ryan Lee (et al.)

Published: December 2021   Journal: Health Promot Practice

School-based COVID-19 testing is a potential strategy to facilitate the safe reopening of schools that have been closed due to the pandemic. This qualitative study assessed attitudes toward this strategy among four groups of stakeholders: school administrators, teachers, parents, and high school students. Focus groups and interviews were conducted in Los Angeles from December 2020 to January 2021 when schools were closed due to the high level of COVID transmission in the community.

Parents’ perceptions of secondary school students’ motivation and well-being before and during the COVID-19 lockdown: the moderating role of student characteristics

AUTHOR(S)
Lisette Hornstra; Linda van den Bergh; Jaap J. A. Denissen (et al.)

Published: December 2021   Journal: Journal of Research in Special Educational Needs
During the COVID-19 lockdown of spring 2020, Dutch children were being homeschooled. This study examined how parents’ (n = 470) perceptions of secondary school students’ (Mage = 14.23 years) need satisfaction, academic motivation and well-being differed before the lockdown (assessed retrospectively) and during the lockdown. Furthermore, it examined the differential impact of the lockdown for different groups of children based on parental educational level, academic track, gender and special educational needs (SEN).
COVID-19 and resilience in schools: implications for practice and policy

AUTHOR(S)
Suniya S. Luthar; Lisa S. Pao; Nina L. Kumar

Published: December 2021   Journal: Social Policy Report
This is a mixed-methods study of risk and resilience in a sample of over 14,000 students from 49 schools, assessed during the first 3 months of COVID-19 in the United States. Over a third of students were of color and almost a third received financial aid. Participation rates were typically 90–99%. Overall, rates of clinically significant depression and anxiety were lower during distance learning in 2020 as compared to parallel rates documented during 2019, with a few exceptions. Hispanic students did not show reductions in depression rates, nor did gender non-binary youth. Analyses of multiple risk and protective factors showed that in relation to depression, the most potent predictor was parent support, with effect sizes at least twice as high as those for any other predictor.
Reconfiguring home: seeing remote work and school through mothers and their children
Published: December 2021   Journal: Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference Proceedings
What happens when we include children as equal participants? In a project to identify design opportunities to support working mothers during a time when schools have closed across the U.S. in response to COVID-19, this study crafted the research to create space for children to voice their needs. Opportunities for all parties involved have been offered—the designers, the researchers, and the moms who participated.
The experience of SENCOs in England during the COVID-19 pandemic: the amplification and exposure of pre-existing strengths and challenges and the prioritisation of mental health and wellbeing in schools

AUTHOR(S)
Adam Boddison; Helen Curran

Published: December 2021   Journal: About this Journal Journal of Research in Special Educational Needs
A national survey of Special Educational Needs Coordinators (SENCOs) in England was conducted during the summer of 2020 in the midst of the global COVID-19 pandemic. The annually conducted survey typically collates demographic data about the SENCO workforce, but given the wider context, this particular survey also included nine questions about SENCOs' experiences during the pandemic. More than 1000 SENCOs participated in the survey and the findings demonstrate the critical contribution of SENCOs in supporting pupils with SEND and maintaining effective communication with their families during the pandemic. The study provides evidence of an amplification effect in relation to the strengths and challenges that SENCOs had been experiencing prior to the pandemic. The study also demonstrates the importance of prioritising mental health and wellbeing in schools for both pupils and staff in the wake of the pandemic, with this being the key priority identified by SENCOs across all types of setting and all phases of education.
Effects of regulatory focus on online learning engagement of high school students: the mediating role of self-efficacy and academic emotions

AUTHOR(S)
Wenbo Deng; Weina Lei; Xipei Guo (et al.)

Published: December 2021   Journal: Journal of Computer Assited Learning

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, online courses have been extensively used from K-12 to higher education. Online learning engagement, an important factor in online learning success, is currently at a low level in high school. Meanwhile, the research on the factors that influence high school students' online learning engagement is still limited. Based on the theories of regulatory focus and value control, this study developed a multi-mediation model to investigate whether self-efficacy and academic emotions can mediate the relationship between regulatory focus and online learning engagement.

Sociality, resilience and agency: how did young Australians experience online learning during Covid-19?

AUTHOR(S)
Loshini Naidoo; Jacqueline D’warte; Susanne Gannon (et al.)

Published: December 2021   Journal: The Australian Educational Researcher
In 2020 when schooling was abruptly reconfigured by the pandemic, young people were required to demonstrate new capabilities to manage their learning and their wellbeing. This paper reports on the feelings, thoughts and experiences of eight Year 9 and 10 students in NSW and Victoria about the initial period of online learning in Australian schools that resulted from the Covid-19 pandemic. Beyond dominant narratives of vulnerability and losses in learning, our participants offered counternarratives that stressed their capacities to rise and meet the times. This study trace three central themes on how they: found moments of agency that increased their confidence, reconfigured resilience as a socially responsible set of practices, deployed sociality as a resource for the benefit of themselves and others. The pandemic opened up conversations with young people about where and how learning takes place and how schools might adapt and respond to young people’s growing sense of urgency about the future of schooling.
Covid-19 and school closure: examining the impact on private mid-range and low-fee private basic schools in Ghana

AUTHOR(S)
Lordina Juvenile Ehwi; Richmond Juvenile Ehwi

Published: December 2021   Journal: Prospects
The Covid-19 lockdown implemented globally to prevent the spread of the virus has led to the closure of schools. However, insight into the impact of the lockdown on private schools and the responses it has elicited is limited, especially across the African continent. This article examines the impact of the lockdown on private basic schools in Ghana and how they responded to the closure. Following “organizational ambidexterity” and qualitative interviews with nine proprietors of private schools in Ghana, the study found that the schools’ closure had a negative impact on private basic schools in five crucial ways: disruption to teaching and learning, difficulty in retrieving unpaid teaching fees, inability to pay staff salaries and statutory payments, underutilization of existing assets, and the cost of storing unused stock. The article offers suggestions to the government to support private schools that are broadening educational access at thin profit margins.
Reopening with resilience: lessons from remote learning during COVID-19 – East Asia and the Pacific

AUTHOR(S)
Youngkwang Jeon; Akihiro Fushimi; Dominic Koeppl (et al.)

Institution: *UNICEF
Published: December 2021

COVID-19 school closures in East Asia and the Pacific threaten to widen existing learning inequities and increase the number of children out of school. During the pandemic, governments rapidly deployed remote learning strategies, ranging from paper-based take-home materials to digital platforms. However, lack of electricity – critical to connectivity – remains a key obstacle for the region, particularly in rural areas. Therefore, while digital learning platforms were offered by most Southeast Asian countries, take-up was low.  A combination of modalities – including mobile phone-based learning strategies – and collaboration with a range of non-governmental education stakeholders have the potential to enhance the reach of remote learning and to make it more engaging for students. Lessons from the regional implementation of these strategies emphasize the importance of research to understand the needs of students, educators and parents and the impact of remote learning, especially in low-resource contexts

Reopening with resilience: lessons from remote learning during COVID-19 – South Asia

AUTHOR(S)
Radhika Nagesh; Frank van Cappelle; Vidur Chopra (et al.)

Institution: *UNICEF
Published: December 2021

COVID-19 school closures in South Asia lasted longer than in any other region. To mitigate subsequent effects, governments and education actors in South Asia provided a range of remote learning modalities.This report presents evidence on the reach and effectiveness of these remote learning strategies through a meta-analysis of studies from the region. Large differences in students’ access to connectivity and devices show that high-tech remote learning modalities did not reach all students. Lessons learned indicate that the effectiveness of one-way or low-tech modalities can be enhanced through increased engagement and support from educators. Teachers, parents and caregivers must be supported to help children learn remotely, especially in cases where they must rely on these low-tech remote learning modalities. Formative assessments are needed to understand the scale of lost learning and target responses to remediate this learning loss when schools reopen.  

466 - 480 of 1293

UNICEF Innocenti's Children and COVID-19 Library is a database collecting research from around the world on COVID-19 and its impacts on children and adolescents.

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COVID-19 & Children: Rapid Research Response

UNICEF Innocenti is mobilizing a rapid research response in line with UNICEF’s global response to the COVID-19 crisis. The initiatives we’ve begun will provide the broad range of evidence needed to inform our work to scale up rapid assessment, develop urgent mitigating strategies in programming and advocacy, and preparation of interventions to respond to the medium and longer-term consequences of the COVID-19 crisis. The research projects cover a rapid review of evidence, education analysis, and social and economic policies.